The Shadows on the Screen E-Book

Arthur Conan Doyle

• Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 28

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In this haunting tale, a man becomes obsessed with mysterious images that appear on a photographic plate—visions that hint at crime, guilt, and possibly the supernatural. The Shadows on the Screen blends early forensic imagination with metaphysical unease, crafting a short story where technology becomes a ghostly witness to human wrongdoing.

Leseprobe

The Shadows on the Screen

The Uncharted Coast Series

By: Arthur Conan Doyle

Prepared and edited by: Rafat Allam

Copyright © 2025 by Al-Mashreq eBookstore

First published in The Strand Magazine, May 1920

First book appearance in The Edge Of The Unknown, 1930

No part of this publication may be reproduced whole or in part in any form without the prior written permission of the author

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

The Shadows on the Screen

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Landmarks

Table of Contents

Cover

First published in The Strand Magazine, May 1920 First book appearance in The Edge Of The Unknown, 1930

1

There is nothing more wonderful, more incredible, and at the same time, as it seems to me, more certain, than that past events may leave a record upon our surroundings which is capable of making itself felt, heard, or seen for a long time afterwards. I have put the impressions in the order of their frequency, for it is more common to feel the past than to hear it and more common to hear it than to see it. Houses which are haunted by vague noises are more common than those which possess apparitions, and families have been persecuted for years by poltergeists who have never once caught a glimpse of their tormentors.

A sensitive mind is easily affected in any place where there has been recent trouble. A lady of my acquaintance called recently upon the matron of a hospital and found that she was not in her room. “Mrs. Dodson has gone out,” said the nurse. “Has she had bad news?” “Yes, she has just had a wire that her husband is very ill.” How did my friend know that there had been bad news? She felt it by a sinking of her own heart as she entered the room, before the nurse had arrived. “Telepathy!” says the parrot. Well, if telepathy can be stretched to mean that a thought or emotion can not only be flashed from brain to brain, but that it can remain stationary for an hour and then impress itself upon any sensitive who approached it, then I will not quarrel with the word. But if for an hour why not for a year, and if for a year why not for a century? There is a record on the etheric screen so that it may retain indefinitely some intimate and lasting change which marks and can even faintly reproduce the emotion which a human being has endured within it.

I had a friend who lived in a century-old house. His wife, who was sensitive, was continually aware of a distinct push when she came down the stairs, always occurring upon the same step. Afterwards it was discovered that an old lady who had formerly lived in the house received a playful push from some frolicsome child, and lost her balance, falling down the stairs. It is not necessary to believe that some hobgoblin lingered upon that stair continually repeating the fatal action. The probable explanation seems to be that the startled mind of the old woman as she felt herself falling left some permanent effect behind it which could still be discerned in this strange fashion.